Prologue
May 1899
Liverpool, England
The moment before the curtains were raised, when Ava stood in the darkness – heart thudding, palms damp – was the moment she felt most alive. She could feel her fear, bitter and bright beneath her skin; though here, in the shadows, she let it surge. Let it thrum through her veins like quicksilver, until it heightened her senses, turning every murmured whisper, every movement from the audience into a cue she could follow.
Her mother had always said waiting for the act to begin felt like waiting an age for the first day of spring, but for Ava, the darkness was her chrysalis. It was where she left all her doubts, all her worries locked behind a door in her mind. When the curtains finally drew away and Bertie bathed the stage in light, Ava emerged as if she were someone else entirely, her arms spread as wide as wings.
‘Tonight,’ Ava said, her voice low and commanding as she stepped towards the crowd. ‘You will watch memories dance before your eyes as though you were there. You will see your loved ones as clearly as you see the person beside you, as clearly as you see me, now, upon this stage.’
She tried not to search the crowd for Jem, or her brother – for they would be in the front row. Instead she listened for her cue – for the audience’s reaction would tell her how hard the next part was going to be. Mesmerism wasn’t sorcery, and nor was it mind-reading. Mesmerism was all about the power of suggestion.
‘Who wishes to be my volunteer?’ Ava asked, sparking a wave of whispers to ripple through the room.
Hands lifted in the golden haze of the auditorium, and Ava’s gaze snagged on her brother at last.
And the empty seat beside him.
She felt something twist in her stomach – Jem wasn’t there. Why wasn’t Jem there? It took everything she had to ignore those questions, to ignore the sweat that’d begun to bead at her temples as a young woman was chosen to come forth. She focussed on the woman instead – her unsteady steps as she climbed up to the stage, the way her fingertips pinched at the fine material of her skirts.
‘Tell me what it is you wish to remember,’ Ava said, giving the woman an encouraging smile.
‘M-my sister.’ The woman’s voice was tremulous, and high with nerves. ‘I want to see her, the way she was. Before she got sick. It was so long ago now – and I was so young when she passed. I don’t remember much of her at all.’
‘Then we shall reunite you,’ said Ava, sitting and unclasping the thin, brass chain from her pocket.
Perhaps Jem is ill.
Perhaps he forgot?
When she’d seen him yesterday, he’d been … different. Quiet, when he was usually quick – his answers clipped, his expression clouded. She’d put it down to nerves – about meeting the company tonight, about announcing their engagement. About stepping into her world.
But what if it was something more than that? What if—
Ava heard Lillian – the mercurial theatre manager – clear her throat from the wings, and turned back to the young woman.
‘Focus your gaze on this watch,’ Ava said, recovering herself. ‘And I shall count back from ten. When I arrive at one, you will be in a state akin to sleep – although unlike sleep, I will be able to guide your mind, and your memories will take a form much more solid than dreams.’
As Ava began to count, the woman’s gaze followed the watch – but unsteadily, slipping from it to look at Ava, or down at her own hands. Ava kept the rhythm of each swing as steady as a metronome, though now her fingers trembled upon the chain.
‘Six.’
The woman shifted a little in her seat, and her eyes slid away – towards the dark mass of the audience. Heat pricked up Ava’s throat as her gaze tracked, too, to the empty seat beside her brother. She could feel it now, the tightrope she walked upon each time she set foot on this stage – and she could feel the fall that would await her if she failed.
Ava leaned towards the young woman, her voice low enough that only the two of them could hear it.
‘Follow the watch,’ Ava said. ‘And only the watch. Only then shall we see your sister.’
Finally, the woman’s gaze began to swing with the pocket watch, back and forth, back and forth – and Ava continued to count, until she reached one.
For a long, aching second, the woman merely sat there – her eyes still open. Then, finally – her eyelashes shivered closed, the resistance draining from her with a slow, reluctant sag of her head.
Ava’s throat ached with the sheer relief of it – and she felt the wild fear that’d thrummed in her chest begin to loosen as the audience began to gasp and whisper. Ava tried not to hear them, tried to focus instead on the young womanbefore her, to pretend as though it were just the two of them in a darkened room, and not on a stage.
‘I want you to think of your sister,’ she whispered, placing a hand upon the young woman’s shoulder. ‘A place that was special, just for the two of you. Can you do that? Try now – and tell me what you can see.’
‘Snow,’ the woman had whispered – her eyes closed, her lips curled upwards. ‘Ice.’
